Mohegan gaming results continue down trend

Mohegan -- The Mohegan Tribal Gaming Authority, which operates the Mohegan Sun casino, announced today that its third-quarter fiscal year earnings declined 4.7 percent compared with the same period a year ago.

Profits of $344.4 million for the April-through-June period compared with $361.4 million in the same quarter last year.

“Our third quarter operating results were lackluster,” Mitchell Etess, chief executive of the authority, said in a statement. “However, Mohegan Sun at Pocono Downs (in Wilkes-Barre, Pa.) continued to perform well, and we recently broke ground on our new hotel and convention center, which will further add to the property’s profitability in the future.”

Etess said high-end players at Mohegan Sun have said they are cutting back on gaming partly in anticipation of the possible expiration of Bush tax cuts for those with high incomes.

“People are still feeling a little squeamish,” he said in a conference call.

Through June, both Mohegan Sun and Foxwoods Resort Casino had reported six months of year-over-year declines in slots revenue.

Gaming revenues were $307.1 million for the quarter, down 6.5 percent from last year. Slot revenues also fell, by 3.4 percent, to $224.9 million.

Etess said the authority had expected a slot-revenue drop of about 3 percent related to new gaming competition from Resorts World, the slots parlor that opened last fall at the Aqueduct racetrack in New York City. But it wasn’t expecting an estimated 3 percent decline in table games that he said also was attributable to Aqueduct competition.

Etess added that Revel, the $2.4 billion casino in Atlantic City, N.J. that opened during the spring, also had a small effect on Mohegan Sun revenues.